La Americana Read online

  A week later

  We flew in from separate parts of the country—I came from Savannah and my brother from the University of Montana—and I stayed with my old roommate, Jacque, while Walter headed to our aunt’s, an hour north of the city. On the morning of the ninth, the day before my mom’s birthday, Jacque rode the train to New Jersey with me. I hadn’t been back to my mom’s house since she had died.

  Jim picked us up at Convent Station and I was happy to see him, as was Jacque. When we pulled up to the house, the coffeepot in my stomach tipped over, sloshing madness all over my system. As I walked through the door, I knew I was crossing into dark, dangerous territory. It was a wild jungle where I was outnumbered by memories. I did not want to be there.

  The front of the house, which includes the foyer, the kitchen, and the dining room, was manageable, as I had no specific thoughts attached to them. Only: “Mom, do you think you should be drinking coffee?”

  “What’s it going to do—kill me?” and she laughed that naughty little laugh, a bright twinkle still in her eye, and sipped her morning cup.

  Shaking my head: “You’re sick. Absolutely sick in the head,” and I laughed with her.

  But as I moved in and passed the bathroom door to the right, the harbor of the living room to the left, and finally the small family room where she had died in her homebound hospice bed, I didn’t know how I was going to make it in that house until the next morning. Jim took us out to dinner and roused us as always, so at minimum, the night was filled with good times.

  Careful not to drink more than one glass of wine at dinner—I couldn’t handle feeling any more out of control than I already did—we headed straight to bed once back in the house. On my way up, I noticed a sturdy, white box on the dining room table that wasn’t there earlier in the day. I knew it was my mom. I felt queasy, but never stopped to take an extra glance. Upstairs, I took the twin bed where I always slept and Jacque took my mom’s. Inundated with flashes, I turned on the TV to help drown them.

  “Are you OK?” Jacque asked.

  “Not really. Just want to get through tomorrow and go home,” though I didn’t even know what that meant.

  New York felt like home in so many ways, but I didn’t know how to be there. Mom was home, but she wasn’t there. I wanted to be with Luis, but couldn’t. I was so confused. Why was it so hard to just be? Jacque fell asleep, but I was restless and ended up watching TV for another two or three hours.

  In the dark, I walked the stairs down toward the dining room. With only minimal light from the foyer, I moved toward the box, full of my mom’s ashes. I must have stared at it for a solid minute before I picked it up. It was much heavier than I thought it would be. I put it back down, feeling unsteady. Another minute passed and I tried to slide the top off, but it wouldn’t budge. Suddenly, I was nauseous, really nauseous, and ran back up the stairs to the bathroom, where I threw up. I stayed on the second floor the rest of the night.

  The next morning, Mom’s birthday, Jim had the box in an oversize Valentine’s Day bag, which sat by the front door. I didn’t want pageantry, but this seemed a little too practical to me. I ignored it with vigilance, as if it were a live person sitting, gun in hand, ready to take me out.

  That morning, I got an email from Allison, who, by then, was on the other side of the world, in South Korea teaching English:

  Subject: much to my regret

  Date: Fri, 10 Jan 2003 15:47:28 -0500

  I know you were kind of emotional about leaving and going up to New York. I am sorry that you are nervous and freaked about your mom’s funeral but this is a necessary step in order to continue with the mending process.

  God, that sounds so clinical and dry. What I mean is that ceremonies suck but we need them in order to get on with things and say good-bye and … kind of like hello. Like you are checking on her to see what’s up. Like cemeteries. They are there so we can hang out with our loved ones and feel comfortable visiting their earthly remains … even though you carry your mom’s spirit inside of you all of the time.

  I love you so much and miss you. You are my best and strongest friend.

  By the way, I have been having weird dreams about you and Luis. I won’t go into detail but it entails you in lingerie and heels cooking eggs in the kitchen while he dances naked around the house.

  Weird, huh? Poor Luis. He is going to go bananas when he meets your insane friends.

  You are a strong, groovy chick. Try not to go nutty and start throwing things … but if you have to, do it. I hope Jim is handling things OK. It seems like he gets a little kooky when it comes to you and your mom. I think you may remind him so much of your mom that he wants to hold on just a bit longer. Try to understand but be firm about what you know your mother would want … which is to be laid to rest … right?

  I love you. Survive New York only to love Cuba.

  Write me when you get back to the States.

  Love, Allie

  On the drive to the cemetery, the box sat under my seat. Jim, Jacque, and I rambled about theater, symphonies, and Jim’s arthritis, but our conversations could only distract me so much from the bag, full of my mom, just below.

  When we arrived, Jacque, Zia, and my family waited by the front gate while Jim and I went inside the office to finalize paperwork and to pay, which seemed weird and cold to me. I had the box with me and clutched it under my arm, walking numbly down the hall behind the priest, who had joined us. I was starting to lose it, but sucked it up as much as I could. There was nothing to say, but I couldn’t have talked even if I wanted to. Sadness is so heavy.

  We drove behind the priest to the site with the others in tow. The gloomy sky had cleared and the full sun was out. It was strikingly beautiful in its clear blue and yellow, but bitterly cold. Mom’s spot was on top of a hill, and rolling green space was all around. As far as cemeteries go, it’s very pretty, but I couldn’t find the beauty.

  Our small group chatted among themselves in hushed, respectful tones. I started to cry and walked away from everyone, careful not to slip on the icy grass. In front of me was a small square, deep and empty, where a plot of grass had been. I felt just as empty.

  Walter appeared at my side and looped his arm in mine. The priest gently asked if I wanted to put the box in the ground before or after he spoke. I looked at Walter, feeling lost, and did a limp shrug with my shoulders.

  “Now, I guess.”

  He took the box from me and handed it to a woman who placed my mom into the space; it was more than I could take. Walter remained steady through it all.

  The priest said a lot of words that didn’t mean anything to me. He didn’t know my mom, so it sounded false and contrived. I was offended, but didn’t want to be angry, so I drowned him out. I said good-bye, or hello, as Allison aptly put it, in my own, silent way.

  My eyes closed and I let her know that I thought about her every day, that I missed her terribly, and that I loved her so much. Every day was still a challenge to accept that she was gone. The ceremony was short and then we, one by one, put down roses, pink and red, that Aunt Cathi brought with her. I told Mom happy birthday and good-bye and turned around. Jim was standing there. He came straight to me and hugged me tightly.

  When I got home, I realized that a chapter had closed officially while another was wide open.

  Chapter 43

  Friends and the Curious Case of the Speed Bump

  There was a wedding to plan.

  Luis and I decided on April 26 in Havana. I wrote out a Save-The-Date, unlike most, with the 1, 2, 3s on how to get to Cuba legally. I was available anytime to help. Over a hundred invites were sent in the US, knowing only a handful of close friends and minimal family would go.

  Luis, on his end, was churning the wheels, trying to make things happen. No easy task in Cuba, where getting anyone to finalize anything was nothing short of a miracle.

  I visited him in February, but this was to be the last visit before we married. With me were two of my best friends,
Jacque and Susan. They were there to see Cuba, sure, but I knew more than anything they were there to meet Luis.

  We did the standard touristy bits, visiting Old Havana and Colón Cemetery, walking the Malecón and drinking mojitos and cappuccinos at Hotel Nacional. The girls couldn’t speak Spanish and Luis of course spoke no English, but they slowly connected through howls of laughter as Susan belted show tunes in the backseat and we made stops for pizza near the beach. Luis and I took long distance photos of them, hands thrown in the air, glowing in the chilly, afternoon breeze.

  To round out their experience, a couple of days later, coasting over a speed bump in Havana, a police siren brought us all to a stop in a residential neighborhood. The officer asked Luis to step out of the car and go across the street where two more policemen stood. Lunch shot to my throat. What was happening? Not a sound moved between the three of us in the car, virtual stones in terror.

  The officer, fitted with a large gun on his hip, came around to my open window and started drilling questions: How much was I paying the young man to drive? I panicked, played dumb, and pretended not to speak Spanish. But I think he sensed I did, driving further questions to me alone: How much gas had I put in his car? Where were we going? Were we staying at the young man’s house and at what cost? I played the same routine, but he wasn’t buying it and my hands were dripping.

  Finally, Luis shot across the street and told me it was okay to tell the officer the truth. Hesitantly, I explained in Spanish that Luis and I were engaged, showing the ring on my finger to prove it. My friends and I were all guests at his home. After a brief exchange between Luis and the officer, he hopped back in the car and we drove off. Still, no one spoke on the return trip to the apartment.

  Following that trip Susan wrote a letter to my dad, confiding that she had shared his concerns about my relationship, but all she needed to see was the way Luis looked at me and she wasn’t worried anymore.

  Chapter 44

  A Havana Wedding and the Canadian Chickens

  By April, our guest list had dwindled considerably, with only twenty Americans heading to Cuba. Some were flying to Miami, then directly to Havana, while others flew in from New York and via Mexico. We made arrangements for some to stay at the Hotel Nacional while others were to rent rooms at a property just across the street.

  As a kid, I was never a Barbie Doll dreamer. I didn’t lose hours on tiaras or wedding day visions. But in the weeks before we married, I did find myself doing uncharacteristically girlie things. I felt strange and princess-like modeling wedding dresses. The dress was easy to find and only the third I tried on. The headpieces were even stranger and Becky had to help me decide on that. And seeing as there would be no one to help with our makeup and hair in Cuba, she and I went for lessons with a professional.

  On the night that I began to pack, I became nervous for the first time. It was four days before I was to marry and I began to worry about wedding details and the overall flow of getting guests to the island safely and on time.

  Then there was my dress to contend with. I was completely paranoid that my getup for the big day might be viewed as a gift or random item for the taking in Cuban customs. I packed nonessential items in a suitcase to be checked, but painfully, I stepped aside as Becky prudently rolled my wedding dress into a narrow sliver, an oversize Cuban cigar, the underworks and all. I don’t know how she did it, but it was unbearable to watch.

  She assured me that her steamer would take out the very large creases that were certainly going to be set before the big day. I took a deep breath and said, “OK.” This is insane, I thought. I had also done the same with a suit I had bought for Luis in New York. Those, packed with our shoes and my makeup, traveled with me in a miniature suitcase that I rolled onto the plane and stored safely above me.

  Walter and Becky traveled with me, using the visas I had helped arrange. My dad couldn’t commit to Cuba. His discomfort with the powers of the communist country won. I was sad, but not angry. I knew that for him not to go to my wedding, sentiments were high. Besides, in typical practicality, he had been the one to encourage us to elope and use his monetary gift for a down payment on a house.

  We all passed through customs in a breeze, with no detection of the dress or suit, which were topped by sheets, and walked out into the madness that is the Cuban airport. My eyes darted around quickly to locate Luis, who stood just outside the gate. Not having seen him in over three months, I had to process him in the flesh. We spoke daily for hours, but to see and hug him was emotionally huge, exacerbated, of course, by the fact that we would marry in a matter of days.

  Luis was tiny. He told me he had been working out daily like me, but I had no idea he had dropped thirty pounds. The suit I bought was going to swallow him whole.

  I stepped aside. “Walter, this is Luis. Luis, Walter,” I said.

  Luis stuck out his hand to Tall Walter’s.

  “Hola,” said Walter, returning the shake. “Cómo estás?”

  Luis smiled and nodded. “Bien, gracias.”

  He hugged Becky and she gave him a kiss on the cheek. Thank God for my nice family. That so could have gone another way.

  After the intros we hopped in the red Bug, dropped off their bags at the Hotel Nacional, and went to Luis’s house so they could meet Ana, who had cooked a big, gorgeous meal for us all. No one could understand one another, and I translated as best I could, but even when my abilities failed, it didn’t stop us all from laughing throughout dinner. Our families were finally together, and Luis and I were no longer confined to my head.

  Luis and Melanie, Hotel Nacional, April 25, 2003 (Corinna Robbins).

  After dinner we took Becky and Walter to the hotel and had a drink out back. I could tell they had touched that same something that I had my first trip to Havana. It was pure magic in the air. Though, with too much to do in the next days, we didn’t make it a late night. Guests would begin to arrive the next day and Luis had set up a tour for those who wanted it so we could hustle and take care of things.

  Walter joined the guests while Becky came with us as we spent a good amount of time in the car, racing from one venue to another to check on various items. Planning a wedding in Cuba is like nothing most can imagine.

  A typical Cuban wedding is an informal affair, followed by food, rum, and good music, of course. The government picks up the tab for the reception so a number of people get married just to have a party, annulling it soon thereafter. But Luis had a different vision. He wanted our wedding his way, and perhaps, Luis is the only person I know who could have pulled off what he did.

  An acquaintance of his, they called him Guajiro, or Mountain Man, worked at the Hotel Nacional back then. One afternoon, Luis ordered a mojito and a cigar from him, sitting at the outdoor bar.

  “I want to have our wedding reception here,” he said.

  Guajiro all but jumped. “You want it here?” he spurted. “You want to have your wedding reception here? I’m going to help you have it here,” hitting his open hand on the bar’s wooden top.

  A week later, Guajiro called. “I have the salon, but it’s small. Not gonna do. I want you to be where Compay Segundo plays!”

  He was referring to the much larger ballroom, just off the back gardens.

  “And behind the columns, we’re going to put an open bar, not a box!” alluding to the customary bottles of rum that are passed around parties.

  For that bar, he was going to arrange getting beer and wine, a slightly complicated matter since, as I previously mentioned, rum is the running choice on the island. Then he got into the chicken.

  “And I want the chickens from Canada—the big ones.”

  Guajiro wasn’t having any of the Brazilian chickens, the small ones that Cuba likes to ship in. And, “Here, everyone here eats one thing. Well, my friend, your guests are going to eat two! This isn’t a factory job get-together,” he preached to a solo choir. “No, mi amigo, you are going to have chicken and fish!”

  When Luis asked abou
t getting bronze candelabras for the tables, Guajiro had a maid from the hotel search for only the candelabras on site that stood straight (and quite a task that was, I must say) and asked her to make them shine. Since Luis, as a Cuban, wasn’t allowed to stay in the hotel at that time, somehow, some way, Guajiro arranged this, too.

  “But promise me, for Changó, por tu Mamá, that you won’t tell the manager of the hotel that you are a taxista! If he asks you what you do, change the conversation. Tell him you work at the University of Havana.”

  Several years later, when Ana saw the manager, he asked if Luis is still a scientist.

  Guajiro had become key to our wedding. A true angel. Luis stayed in touch with him on a regular basis to facilitate all that he could while also juggling a gazillion other details—the buses to take guests to the wedding, the dinner rehearsal at a lovely, outdoor restaurant, the wine that would be served there, and getting permission that no one ever tries to obtain in Havana.

  He put in a request for us to get married at Castillo del Morro, the sixteenth-century military fortress in Old Havana that I spied on that first ride along the Malecón with Cynthia and Luis. The problem was that as one of the more important historical monuments in Cuba and a military base, El Morro was off limits to an Americana. Luis was told that no one had ever been married there before and he would have to seek special permission. Though on the verge of impossible, Luis remained determined, dogmatic even, about having it there.

  He wanted our wedding to include the fort’s history, beauty, and formal pomp with our own horse carriage and parade of soldiers, the same ones who, to this day, dress in Spanish colonial wear and sound off cannons at precisely nine o’clock each evening, carrying forward the centuries-old tradition of warning Havana’s citizens to stay indoors and away from night pirates.

  When the local magistrate mentioned that there are typically only two soldiers available for wedding ceremonies, Luis, in a hush, said, “I want eight.”

  “Ay, mi hijo! You and your American!” she gushed. “You with your American and me with mis pelucas.”